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| Subtitle | A Journey into the Real Russia |
| First Written | 2016 |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Origin | Russia |
| Publisher | Picador |
| ISBN-10 | 1250118115 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1250118110 |
| My Copy | library hardback |
| First Read | March 17, 2017 |
Putin Country
You know how they say sci-fi books are always about the time they were actually written? I have never read a book so obviously about the United States.
Maybe this is true about all ethnography. It's certainly true about all travel writing, right?
Noted on March 17, 2017
This is an amazing book; an ethnographic survey / slice of life story set in Chelyabinsk, written by former NPR correspondent. It describes a place that's maybe a little backwards compared to Moscow or Peter, but a representative sampling of the 'real' Russia of today.
What's really striking: if you just squint a little bit, the first half of this book could look like a portrait of Wichita, written by a Swede. There's the exact same 'traditional values' talk, the same just-on-the-edge of jingoistic national pride, the same unblinking acceptance of oppressive economic oligarchs, the same fears over immigration that just read as racist to lefties, the same blustery swapping of liberty for security under the (spurious) threat of terrorism. It's alarming.
The second half of the book dives into problems that seem really Russian - rampant corruption at every level of government, a total breakdown of the rule of law, environmental and nuclear devastation. They don't feel as immediately applicable to the US.
Noted on March 17, 2017
The last time Russia was Russia was 1917. The Soviet identity was in many ways an artificial construct, but it existed for a long while, and by the time it collapsed, who knew what Russia was or what being Russian meant?
Quoted on March 18, 2017
Journalism is at best a complicated beast, but in Russia it is unquestionably a sleazy business, intimidated, co-opted, corrupted, and bought.
Quoted on March 18, 2017
Chelyabinsk is a typical Russian city where everyone knows one another's business. Restrictions on freedom of speech are more severe than in Moscow, where the sheer size of the population provides some with anonymity and the attention of the West provides others with a measure of protection.
Quoted on March 18, 2017
With his dark hair and skin and heavy beard, Abdul is immediately identifiable as "foreign." He moved here to escape the tumult in his native Dagestan, a southern region next to Chechnya, but though a Russian citizen, he is regularly hassled. It's not as bad as Moscow, where police constantly stop "foreign"-looking men, but it's not great.
Quoted on March 18, 2017
Reebin tried hard to improve the region's health care, lobbied hard for money and got it, but then watched as it was eaten up by poor management, cronyism, lack of strategic thinking, and ever-growing corruption.
Quoted on March 18, 2017
Over the past ten years, Russians are on average living a little longer, drinking themselves to death less frequently, killing themselves less often, and killing each other more rarely, but the statistics still aren't great in global terms.
Quoted on March 18, 2017
But they don't want just any immigrant. Putin has urged Russians who live in the former Soviet states to move, but the largest number of immigrants are coming from the impoverished South Caucasus and central Asia. They are people many Russians disparagingly call "blacks."
While I was being questioned by Russian migration officials, they openly expressed their disgust with the "pollution" of their country by non-Slavic immigrants. Though Russian state TV has made a propaganda point out of US racism, it has also aired programs about the negative results of ethnic diversity in America. The Russian migration officials were certain that I too would be upset about the growing numbers of Hispanics in my country. They launched into a diatribe about the similar situation in Russia, comparing Hispanic immigrants to the "unwashed heathen from central Asia who should never set foot in Holy Russia."
Quoted on March 18, 2017
At one point, when she was in total despair, Tatiana started attending New Life, a fundamentalist Baptist church that had opened in Chelyabinsk.
Quoted on March 18, 2017
When I ask if there is one law for Putin and his coterie of corrupt oligarchs and another for the rest of the country, he finds excuses. He says there is corruption everywhere, ignoring Russia's international listing as one of the most corrupt countries. He stands by Putin as smart and capable, a man who will restore the country's industry and its international standing. He deflects whatever criticism of Putin I throw at him, concluding with a Russian proverb: "When there is a fire, you don't ask who the fireman is."
Quoted on March 18, 2017